The New York Times Declares Apologies Pointless

NYT business reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin’s #ApologyWatch tag pretty much petered out, much to the joy of whoever kept reminding us that someone else came up with it first.

Yesterday, though, the Grey Lady ran a piece by David Greenberg of ethics and compliance solutions provider LRN that caught our attention. The issue: why do so many apologies come across as insincere and lame? The answer: because no one really wants to make them and no one really wants to hear them.

“…the modern apology has strayed far from its purpose — acknowledgment and redress of a wrong — and is simply a tactic played out in a larger zero-sum game of winners and losers.”

Greenberg